Tagged Questions

What is an effective potential in classical mechanics? I have read the wikipedia article and David Tong's lectures notes, but I didn't understand how an effective potential simplifies a situation or ...

Suppose two objects travel around the equator on Earth at the same speed, $v$, in opposite directions, where the speed $v$ is measured relative to the Earth's surface. Will they experience different ...

I was going through fluid dynamics and I came upon this section on the shape of a liquid surface in a rotating cylindrical vessel. The working in the book is something like this:
It considers a mass ...

So I'm trying to get an intuition behind the physics behind banked curves (and tilting trains). I know how to do the calculations, but I'm still struggling with the "why".
If I'm sitting in a train, ...

When a ballerina pulls her arms in, her rotational kinetic energy increases because angular momentum is conserved. That means that work must have been done on her. I saw somewhere that there is work ...

I was recently reading some Newtonian dynamics textbook, and then I came across with a problem about the centrifugal effect on mass free falling to Earth. I can mathematically appreciate the fact that ...

I am doing a video for 8th grade on the subject. I'm showing the experiment of swinging a bucket of water over your head. Is there a huge difference between centrifugal and centripetal forces? Would ...

The spinning space-station is very popular in sci-fi as a means of emulating gravity in space. But it requires rather a large diameter to minimise "gravitational gradient" effects and that means such ...

If we imagine an object falling from a height h above the surface of the earth. We can go into a rotating frame and therefore introduce Coriolis and centrifugal forces.
Using the Coriolis force the ...

Today in class we calculated first cosmic velocity using this equation $$G\frac{mM}{(R+h)^2}=\frac{mV^2}{R+h},$$ where $m$ = mass of the body, $M$ = mass of the Earth, $R$ = radius of the Earth, $h$ = ...

I wonder if with current day technology we could make a "floating platform" which hangs from a satellite by a space elevator. This could allow a "launch process" involving floating a balloon to the ...

A wheel (or any ring of considerable mass) hardly balances itself when it is placed vertically on ground, but when we roll it along the ground it balances itself. What causes this effect? I guess its ...

When an object, orbiting in circular path, experiences the sensation of being thrown outward away from the centre of circle. We often think that an outward force or centrifugal force is responsible ...

If a stone is rotated with the help of a rope, then both centripetal force and centrifugal force will be liberated. The magnitude of that forces are same, but direction of them are opposite to each ...

If a point starts to travel through a path of circle, then it will must have acceleration. The only reason behind this, the direction of velocity changes always. We already assumed that the value of ...

I heard that centrifugal force does not really exist; that it is made as opposite substance to centripetal force. Is it true? Could someone define for me what centrifugal force is in terms of vectors ...

I am a mathematician wanting to understand the differences between the concepts of angular momentum and centrifugal force.
The following two ideas are clear to me from a physical point of view, but ...

Considering how useful it could be for the crew of a space station to have at their disposal a 1g environment (or more) at the rim to a 0g environment at the axis of rotation, why aren't modern space ...

I'm trying to figure out the frequency of small oscillations about the basic circular path of a mass at the end of a spring, being spun around a table. I understand that the spring will stretch out a ...

I take it the angle of the steering wheel in a car is roughly proportional to the curvature, and therefore inversely proportional to the turning radius.
When I am driving slowly and want to turn the ...

In the question Centrifuge speed of an object higher than a stationary orbit, I asked: Does an object higher than the stationary orbit move slower or faster around the world than the top of a tower ...

Suppose we have a circular table. We have made a straight line groove in the table extending from the center to the circumference.Now we place a block at some distance from the center in the groove ...

I thought I knew how to use calculus of variations, but then I started thinking about the problem of a rotating liquid and it confused me a great deal. It would be nice to hear your thoughts on the ...

In case of banked roads without friction, there is an additional $mg \sin(\theta)$ which is unbalanced. Why isn't this taken into account because it is responsible for making the vehicle slide down ...